Shammi Kapoor a 40-year-old businessman was charred to death as his Maruti Zen car went up in flames on the Zakheera flyover in west Delhi in the late hours on January 19, 2007. According to eyewitness accounts, the fire started after there was a spark in the fuel tank. From there, it spread to the car's rear wheel and within minutes engulfed the entire car. Investigations have revealed that the car was fitted with a central locking system and the police suspect that the doors got jammed because of that. All the windows were also rolled up .The car (DL 6C G 8495) was running on petrol. The incident occurred around 1.30 am when the deceased, was returning to his home in Moti Nagar. An auto-rickshaw driver spotted the sparks and noticed the car slow down. He was a little distance away so he pulled over to the side and got off the auto to offer help. He told media that he ran to the car at the time only the tyre and part of one side were burning and tried to open the door to pull the deceased out. But he was unable to do so as the doors were jammed. Further investigations have revealed that the car was fitted with a central locking system and the police suspect that the doors got jammed because of that. All the windows were also rolled up. A helpless Kumar then informed a police picket located at the foot of the flyover, but by the time cops arrived and broke the car's windows open, Kapoor had succumbed to severe burn injuries. This casualty send shivers down the spine of several car owners across the country- it was not the first such incident in the country’s capital.
Two persons were charred to death in a Honda City car that caught fire near Delhi Public School on Mathura Road on Many 29, 2006 night. One of the deceased was the car's chauffeur Surender Singh (42), and the other, a maidservant Deepa (25).
In February 2006, a newly engaged couple and their woman friend were charred to death in their Fiat Palio when it caught fire after a truck collided with the vehicle head-on at Malviya Nagar in Delhi. Victims Sumit Tewari, his fiancée Mamta Tyagi and their friend Jahanvi Roy were returning in the car from a family get-together when the mishap occurred.
What was common in these cases was-the victims could not come out of the burning cars apparently because the central locking system were jammed. The fire engulfed the vehicles within seconds and the occupants did not get any time to react.
The local and national media raised relevant questions on this mishap. Why the occupants failed to escape? Did the central locking system jam? Was it a problem with a defective part, or with the car? Why did the safety mechanism to cut off fuel supply in case of fire not work? All valid points, and important ones too. In recent years, a many such incidents have come to pubic attention.
As in Delhi, reports claiming death and fatal injuries getting trapped inside cars also came from Mumbai during flood and Chennai. Most of the victims died in cars when their doors jammed.
Moved by the frequent deaths getting trapped inside the car all over the country, were, three students of mechanical engineering sitting in a small rented room in Indore. Analysing the common factor for death in many of the cases as victims getting trapped following central locking system, what they decided upon was to discover a way out.
Within 60 days, the three students - Arpit Pandya, 22, native of a small village named Jaulana in Banswara of Rajasthan, Siddharth Khandelwal (22) of Indore and Sandeep Chavhan (22) of Dewas came up with a device claiming- once installed in the car, no one else would die, at least by getting trapped inside their car if the Central Locking System or the power door window jams.
Arpit says, ”I am used to read and watch local and national news reports related to automobile industries regularly. One day I saw a news report on Ajj Tak which said two persons were charred to death in a car in Delhi, as they had no chance to move out of the car with its Central Locking System jammed. Just imagine? It was a terrible incident”.
Though Pandya quotes Delhi flyover incident to have moved him, he has got a reference of at least 20 cases were in people suffered the burn of getting trapped inside own cars.
“The passengers inside couldn’t find a way out. Then last year it was suffocated passengers in cars stranded in Mumbai Floods. Courtesy ‘Central Locking System’. Anyways we should not blame the automobile companies- sort of technical snag in automation leads to incidents,” Pandya added. None of these three students put central locking system completely as to be a real culprit for people being charred to death.
Siddharth says “Wrong connection or poor maintenance of electrical parts/wiring of the car can lead to short circuit, which can further lead to a fire case. And then the Central Locking System gets jammed, giving no chance for the commuter to escape.”
What we had to find was an emergency exit from the car in fire after the central locking system jams, he said adding we modified the existing central locking system in the car.
The students after collecting necessary books and resources from the net and their faculties fabricated the system on a wooden board showing all the mechanisms incorporating a new charging circuit.
ASandeep says “Not ore than Rs 500 is required to build this system which allows you to open the jammed central locking system and the power window. As you see in most of the cases, people died because they could not open the doors”.
However, there are some who suggest that the car-locks can just be pulled out and the doors will open, ‘you kick on the edges of the windshield and it will come out’, to the ones like keeping a hammer and fire extinguishers in the car, etc.
“Hammer and fire extinguishers make sense, but not all have the same destiny. The dead cannot narrate how many times would have they kicked the edges of the windshield or have they tried to open the doors. Does a sudden fire/or floodwater give you enough time to escape? I don’t think they would...so better something which is possible in quick time,” Pandya says.
Not far away, Gitesh Bhansali, 30, (photo send) a jeweler in renowned Sarafa Market of Indore is one of the recent victims, who fortunately sustained the killer trap.
Bhansali was on his way home in his Esteem car (Maruti) from near Aerodrome road on February 24, 2007 when he witnessed the incident, the musing of which still leaves him sweating.
“It was around 5.30 pm when I was driving back home. All of a sudden I heard a sound like –zoom- and in a blink of eye my car caught fire. I parked the car aside and tried to rush outside, but I found that the central locking system was jammed. My legs arms and other body parts were charred. I thought of my god and pulled the liver of the door with my full power. After hardened efforts I was able to open it and jump outside the car,” Bhansali said. The jeweler sustained 25 per cent burn injuries in the incident. “My car was gutted. It was left to no use. Thank god that I am alive,” he says.
“In case of a sudden fire broke out and central locking system gets jammed, our system would help him to unlock the door and make and emergency exit” the student claim. When all the doors are jammed, windowpanes are stuck the windshield can’t be broken-our system will work to give a chance to live.
The motive behind and discovery (or to say development in automation technology), which still has a long way to go to be accepted by the automobile companies, has been highly appreciated by the faculties and the administration of their college (Medicaps Institute of Technology and Management) who are now looking forward to get a patent of it.
Like the fire cases in Delhi, deaths in car were also reported from Mumbai and Chennai for the same reason that they couldn't get out. In the devastating Mumbai floods last year, many of the occupants had died after being unable to unlock the doors, which got jammed as water levels rose.
“The concept is very small. The only thing is that no one really bothered,” says Pandya.
Gitesh Bhansali says, “We should not vindicate one party or the other. But I assume, that any sane person’s first reaction in an eventuality like these would be to get out of the vehicle. So the passengers must have tried their best to open the door, slide the windowpanes, or even break it, like I did. The incident still makes me shiver at the thought that there is no emergency exit plan installed in the car. Couldn’t the manufacturers provide manual system, which can be used only from inside, in addition to any-other security gadgets they provide?”
Noteworthy that, automobile and central-locking system companies had distanced themselves from the recent cases of fire in cars, though the issue was taken up by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), which is still investigating the causes behind the incidents.
In box…
Flash Back
Some of the accidents involving central locking system:
Shammi Kapoor a 40-year-old businessman was charred to death as his car went up in flames on the Zakheera flyover in west Delhi in the late hours on January 19, 2007. Eyewitness could not save him because doors were jammed due to central locking system.
Gitesh Bansali: A jeweler was trapped inside his own car when fire broke out on February 24, 2007. He could hardly escape as the Central locking system jammed. Sustained 25 percent burns.
Surender Singh (42) and Deepa (25) were charred to death in a car that caught fire near Delhi Public School on Mathura Road on May 29, 2006. Could not be rescued, as the central locking system was jammed.
Bal Krishnan (37) and his two male employees were found dead inside a car during the floods in Chennai
Nakul Agrawal, a TV artist had his car floating in the flood in Mumbai on July 26, 2005. He was held up inside for 18 hours inside the car after the central locking system filed after water level rose.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0—0-----0-0-0-0-0-0-0-00-0-0-0-0
Note (I have used the actual brand names of car… and have marked it with red….I was not sure whether the brand names is used in such stories or not.. the file photo of delhi flyover incident can be used-if available)
I have send the pic of students posing with their device and one of the local victim showing the burns.
